Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Perception of Physicians towards Generic Medications Use in Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

In many countries, healthcare expenditures have continuously grown during the past years. One way to reduce health care expenditures is through a shift from prescribing expensive brand name drugs to less expensive comparable generic drugs.  The aim of the study was to explore the knowledge, attitude, and perception held by physicians towards generic medicine use. Physicians, who were actively involved in the prescription writing process in Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital (TASH) during a period of two months (i.e. April to May, 2018) were used to evaluate their knowledge, attitude, and perception base with regards to generic medicine use. A self-administered questioner was utilized to attain such purpose. A descriptive analysis (frequency, mean, percentages) was used to describe demographic information as well as physicians’ knowledge, attitude, and perception regarding generic medicine use. Sixty physicians filled and returned the questioner giving rise to a response rate of 60%. A 72.5% mean percentage of correct response was identified on knowledge base questions, indicating an overall adequate knowledge. In this regard, greater than 70% of the respondents gave a correct response on important issues like interchange-ability as well as safety and quality equivalence between generic and brand medicines. The only knowledge barrier that was observed is the belief that ‘generic medicines are not copies of brand name medicines’ (n=42; 70%). Major distrust of locally manufactured products with respect to quality as compared to multinational products was observed (n=32; 53.3%). Moreover, 56.7% of the participants feel neutral in their attitude towards ‘whether local manufacturers follow GMP’. The major factors reported to be a major influence of prescribing decisions were visits by medical representatives (n=25; 41.7%) and patients’ socioeconomic status (n=48; 80%). Most participants (n=37; 61.7%) expressed that they are not comfortable with generic substitution. Most of physicians relatively had acceptable knowledge, attitude, and perceptions towards generic medicines use. Training/education should be organized in order to improve the knowledge of physicians regarding medications cost.